Both forums need an introduction

[Laird]

As some of you have already noticed, we finally followed through on this idea of David's and posted a Forum introduction thread in the forum renamed - a little playfully - from "Forum rules" to Forum Introduction, Rules and Other Important Stuff.

It was my initiative to re-raise this idea privately with the other forum founders, and we then solicited a draft Introduction statement from an anonymous person, and subsequently edited it, with significant portions being excised - which is to say that although I posted the Introduction statement, the words are somebody else's, not my own.

We've also added it as a link (with an icon) to the header. A couple of other minor changes to the header are that "Psience Quest Interviews" has been shortened to just "Interviews", that "Membership list" has been shortened to "Members", and that a bit of reordering has been done.

You are all welcome to suggest and discuss edits to the Introduction statement, although the final decision as to whether or not they will be accepted lies with the forum founders.

As was previously discussed: alternative views (introductory statements) are welcome to be detailed and documented on the wiki, and we'll then link to them by editing links into the existing Introduction statement.

I don't want to make an issue of it, because of course it's up to the site owners what the site introduction should say.

But for the record, my suggestion was that the introduction should continue as follows:

And most other topics can be discussed here too, though the community did decide that politics and conspiracy theories would be best discussed in private forums rather than in public.


_Proponents and sceptics_

Psi has been investigated in the lab for nearly a century now, and it's still a controversial subject. Discussion tends to become polarised between two extremes. Many proponents of psi point to the accumulated experimental evidence, and the astronomical odds against these results being obtained if psi didn't exist. They are convinced, and are frustrated when other people don't share their conviction. But many sceptics are just as convinced that the phenomena aren't real. They don't think the experimental evidence can be taken at face value, and prefer conventional explanations in terms of poor experimental technique, selective reporting of good results, and outright fraud. What's undeniable is that the existence of psi hasn't been accepted by the scientific world as a whole, and remains controversial.

Psience Quest is not a site for proponents, and it's not a site for sceptics. Both proponents and sceptics are welcome to post in all areas of the site, and are encouraged to get to grips with the evidence and engage with the arguments about it. In order to avoid discussion of particular topics being derailed by the eternal confrontation over whether psi exists or not, there's a special "Sceptic vs. Proponent" forum for that kind of argument. If you want to convince people that psi is all nonsense whatever the evidence says, that's the place to do it. Equally, that's the place to argue that it should all be taken on faith regardless of the evidence.

"Equally, that's the place to argue that it should all be taken on faith regardless of the evidence."

- is this taken to mean that proponents typically do this? Elsewhere they may, but I'd suggest PsienceQuest is not the forum for that sort of post. Evidence is pretty much at the heart of what this place is about.

"Equally, that's the place to argue that it should all be taken on faith regardless of the evidence."

- is this taken to mean that proponents typically do this? Elsewhere they may, but I'd suggest PsienceQuest is not the forum for that sort of post. Evidence is pretty much at the heart of what this place is about.

No, my idea wasn't that proponents typically did that. It was that if anyone did want to do it, it would fall into much the same category as sceptics arguing it was all nonsense regardless of the evidence.

And most other topics can be discussed here too, though the community did decide that politics and conspiracy theories would be best discussed in private forums rather than in public.

Your post received a like from me because you included the ‘untouchables’.